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Sitting on a motorcycle while black at Adams and Chelmsford streets in Dorchester

Woman on a motorcycle records an angry man last night. Cop shows up as guy is still screaming at her demanding to know where she lives, wants backup from the cop, who tells him "I don't care where she lives, it's none of my business where she lives" as he moves the guy away.

Video has lots of screaming, expletives if you're at work or have a kid nearby.

I fully expect this video to appear In Drew Magary's hilarious column "Why Your Team Sucks" NFL preview: Patriots edition. Part of the schtick is ragging on each city for it's shortcomings and this fits nicely into Boston's racist narrative, and the guy is wearing his home team white trash uniform.
Watching the video I kept saying "he better go to jail at the end of this," because if I ever got in the face of a cop like that, screaming and swearing at him, I would expect no less.

He's also one big cop. He's pushing the guy back slowly but surely, getting him away from the motorcyclist.
But...he's alone, it looks like. As any cop will tell you (like in the DeWitt center story from yesterday) it is better to not be alone.

One thing that's pretty impressive about BPD is how most officers seem well trained to not go ballistic, even in the face of things that would drive the rest of us reaching for guns or making fists (like guys pointing guns at them).

And, you're quite right - I don't have first hand experience with interactions between BPD cops and people in the minority community. Please educate me, or are you just looking for an excuse to bash Readville (where I don't live, but whatever).

If you know of specific incidents, share the facts. Place/parties/action/results. Not Ferguson/Minneapolis cases, but 617. Hell, send them to Adam, I bet he would be eager to share the news of what you're implying goes down in Boston all the time. (And if doing any of this runs up against some kind of #NoSnitchin credo, don't blame other folks who are trying to fill in the gaps whatever way they can.)

Is it really worth wasting my time debating you with tit-for-tat anecdotes, especially since you've already revealed your enlightenment and understanding via your preemptive, condescending, little-minded "No Snitchin" crap? I know you've been itchin to squeeze that into a conversation about race, to demonstrate how the African-American community has gotten itself into this mess, but it has nothing to do with this discussion.

It's cute how the 99.99% white audience of this website pretends to be progressive, but continuously insulates itself from the truth with nonsense feel-good narratives including Bill Evans' "department most respected by the minority community."

If you'd all like to continue believing that all Bostonians are equal under the law, then be my guest.

Where I'm coming from: My writing here tends to be about a series of discrete events: A shooting, an arrest, a crash, repeat day after day, month after month. I focus on the sorts of things that make you go "why are there half a dozen cruisers on my street?"

So not a lot of consideration of institutional, generational, intersectional issues, at least when it comes to crime (I've done some with public education, but even there, not really a lot).

It's never optimal to pull out anecdotes to discuss something that's institutional, but take the public perception of this young, white cop who shows up each day from his leafy neighborhood in West Roxbury to report to work in a high-crime precinct.

The black public, walking down the street minding its own business, has a much different POV when that same cop unjustifiably stops, delays, harasses, and goes out of his way to belittle and put down - what do you do for work, anything?...whose phone is that...clown...

And I can assure you that this is the kind of shit that goes down on a daily basis, dozens if not hundreds of times per day, in Roxbury, Mattapan, and Dorchester. Does the white community care? Would you tolerate this in Readville or Beacon Hill if it happened to you on a regular basis? Would you have the same deferential sentiment toward the BPD?

The default opinion is either yours -
that this really doesn't happen much because the BPD, on the whole, is well-trained, doing its job, and is much-loved by minorities (if Bill Evans repeats it enough, it must be true!) -
or else the racist opinion that the black guy somehow deserves this and shouldn't be talking back to authority, and/or that black youth should be harassed more often because that's the only way to successfully fight crime in a "no-snitchin" culture.

I'm sure that you honestly would like to offer more consideration of minority life in Boston beyond the police report items, and it would be fantastic if UHub could find a way to provide some honest perspective of how the BPD actually behaves in minority communities. But I don't know where you'd ever begin shedding any light on institutional racism - the Globe got endlessly mocked by the (surprisingly widespread) Dennis & Callahan/Turtleboy Sports crowd for even trying - and at the end of the day, I suspect that it's not the sort of thing the 99-and-44/100ths readership of this website really comes here for, alas.

While I like Adam's witty titles that often rival NY Post, the actual news items are usually pretty run of the mill. What keeps me coming back is the commentary, 99 44/100 % of which is very good because I often learn things about my community. Historuy, how to, opinions how other neighborhoods do things and more. And of course the debate is always interesting and challenging when you get involved.

The question is, what prompted this behavior? Did someone just get shot? Was he trying to get a better look at the guy?

Upfront, it looks unjustified and this cop should be called on the carpet for this crap 100%. But there might be more to the story. My experience w BPD with a sole exception has been pretty good, but with 2500 or so cops I guarantee there are bad apples and 10% are having a bad day every day. They're people before they are cops.

I get it, and more every day after stories like that poor girl at Smith College. We need to change this crap. But we also need to stop the "all white peope" crap and all cops crap too.

Bill Evans isn’t our Commissioner anymore in case you’ve missed it. We have our first ever African-American Commissioner, who is backed heavily by the vast majority of patrolmen in the BPD. So we get it, you don’t really like him, or us, but sadly you’re going to have to try a new angle.

Racism exists in America, there is no doubt about it. But you’re talking out your ass. Yes, that particular cop sucks and has a reputation, but is ridiculed within the BPD. Here is a fun fact though: he has even before that incident.

You could also try to do what some of us minorities did and maybe, I dunno, join the BPD? “Be the change you want to see in the world” isn’t just some catchy slogan, it’s actually something you can literally do.

he's been on the job for one day. Hardly long enough to affect the entire force with a more progressive viewpoint, unless you were all up late getting retrained. He mentioned the previous Commissioner because that Commissioner had been on the job more than one day and maybe the attitude of the cops, past and still present, reflect that.

You know, the ones where BPD is busting the heads of Black men raising 1/10th the stink, that you let us know you've got the special knowledge on.

I know I'll be enlightened. Because I'm in Dudley about a dozen times a week, and everything between the (predominately POC) PD and the peoples seems pretty copacetic every time I'm there. But then again, maybe I'm incapable of really seeing what's going on around me.

So it'll be our education to hear from you some of the specifics about the unequal treatment that today's Boston Police Department is systemically dishing out.

That's an interesting claim, and one would think from what you said that it would be easy to make a long list of such lawsuits from POC vs BPD. But I didn't find much recently (ie last couple years) other than the horrible Terrence Coleman case.

This Globe article from 2015 talks about the most notable BPD vs citizen lawsuits from the last decade, but in the seven cases where it names the victim, it looks like like only two or three are POCs.

I am not rejecting your assertion, but it would be useful if you could show reportage to support your claim.

Since you still have yet to give any actual examples of BPD’s interactions with minorities, let me give you mine. As a black person living in Roxbury for years, all of my interactions with all law enforcement in this state (including BPD) have been respectful and courteous. However, I am well educated and not from this state so I know my experiences aren’t like everyone else’s, but I do know at least from my perspective that BPD is doing a very fine job compared to police departments in other major cities.

My philosophy is: I will be nice to you, no matter what, in the beginning. If you are nice to me in return, I will continues to be respectful.

I’ve thanked some of the most hardened gang involved people I’ve come across during an arrest for treating me politely. And I’ve done things like gotten them water or food while in the cell because they treat me nicely. I’ve also lost my voice yelling at a white kid on a bicycle who ran a red light and treated me like I a complete punk.

So I’d confidently say that most of the BPD believes that you should treat us like you want to be treated. We are people too.

I watched a black guy ejected from an establishment one night for being a nuisance. Said black guy requested the police so the establishment obliged. Two white officers showed up and told the guy to leave the area but he wouldn't. They threatened to arrest him if he didn't leave but he would not listen. He became more and more aggressive and threatening.

The whole show went on for about 1 hour and 30 mins. The original two officers were joined by more senior staff. Each one patiently telling the guy to leave the area. They offered the black guy multiple opportunities to go home. But he wouldn't. He was eventually arrested for disorderly conduct.

after a car crashes into an innocent person driving, after he runs over a pedestrian sending the cops to chase him onto your street and into your neighborhood should be disturbing to all. This guy went over the top with his frustration and anger. I can totally understand why he freaked, he’s right, maybe we should all take more pride in our neighborhoods. I would love to know what prompted him to go after this specific black woman on her motorcycle. What happened before she pressed record on her camera? Pretty sure the police had other matters to tend to like recovering the loaded revolver sitting in on the street in an otherwise working class family neighborhood. That yes, hold onto your pearls, includes all races living together just fine until some asshole gets chased by the cops.

As a white woman who has encountered such threatening behavior for the *crime* of legally operating a bicycle while not accompanied by a male, I'm betting that it had to do far more with her DARING to exist and ride a motorcycle than any other possible thing, save a Viagra shortage and drinking an entire case of beer.

But for women, these encounters come with the added element of sexual harassment. Not only are we targeted as cyclists, we’re further penalized because of our gender. From mild but misplaced flirtation to outright assault, the message from perpetrators seems to be this: You’re a woman who dares to ride a bike, so we can say or do anything we want to you.

This is patently false, Im a white guy that was "assaulted" by a black homeless man in Dudley throwing spare change at my head I gave him last night (Sunday), while a Boston Police Officer on Warren St witnessed the entire altercation. I'm not pressing the situation, but BPD are pretty lenient and really don't do shit for anyone unless hard drugs or guns are involved.

This clown goes all ranty in the middle of the street. Please explain to me what this has to do with the President.

Most Trump supporters (and the Never Hillary crowd) are actually not very stressed out. But, since you raised the subject...where to begin...

Kavanaugh...Call him Justice.
Europe...suddenly got pragmatic about their bills and some free market talk is happening.
Ukraine...got $200 mill in military hardware. Vlad got his warm water access, but that happened a while back...before 2016...draw.
Norks...We shall see, but they are apparently (Reuters, no less) dismantling a missile site. They're also smuggling coal out, but hey, it's the message that counts. Both ways. Enjoy the coal.
Mexico... suddenly got religion about NAFTA. Canada seems to be getting a bit pragmatic, too.
Russia...please...their military budget is about ten percent of ours. They ain't gonna do shit in Europe. They need Siberia too much.
China...without our trade they collapse, and they damn well know it. That's why they helped the President on the DPRK problem.
ISIS...not much left, death throes of any rabid animal can be dangerous.
Saudi Arabia...women drive. No jokes here, there was an article online where they are buying 400 HP Audis. Inshallah, as they say.
Iran...all major cities are in disarray. Good news...yesterday the Deutsche Bundesbank denied an Iranian bank $400 mill in cash they needed to pay their foreign terrorists electric bill. US Treasury blindsided Angela Merkel with a last minute minor change in regs. Iran could go down gracefully, like the old USSR, but I doubt it. Hey, who knows.
Mueller...arrested a guy wearing an ostrich coat that didn't pay his taxes...and is getting dope-smacked by a federal judge.
The facebook...just bounced a bunch of fake sites...that were helping the Democrats.
Can't you lefties and progs put any torpedoes in the water without having them circle back on yourselves?
NY Times hires a new writer...then doubled down on racist crazy.
Diane Feinstein, former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had a Chinese spy as a driver...for twenty f#cking years.

Well, tomorrow is another day. Enjoy the weekend, maybe if you can get to the beach, you can find a blue wave.

- a man that called a POW a coward.
- a man that mocked a person with a disability
- slept with a porn star a little after his wife gave birth to their child.
- failed to denounce a KKK leader when asked.

dude, if that's your comparison that's pretty bad. Nixon's foreign policy milestone was opening trade to China....so, he got us into the mess with China we're in today, with all the shipping of jobs overseas for cheaper labor, boarded up mill towns and lead painted toys for our kids that came with it so....good job? I guess the corporations people like you so worship got rich though. All we had to do was send business to a Communist country exploiting its workers. COOL. Then as we all know the wealth "trickled down" to us plebes in the 80s under Reagan, and will do so again under Trump. Maybe he will "open up" North Korea for exploitation just like Nixon did with China. Mmmmmm.....CAPITALISM. Yum yum.
Leaving aside the clusterbang of Vietnam, the guy was a trainwreck with foreign policy.

... Adam? Or are you contributing to the racist rhetoric that is ever so popular these days. Do you care to enlighten us about the full story and consider re-titling this headline? I’m all for keeping it original if the only thing that triggered this isolated incident was a black person parking their motorcycle (was t an actual motorcycle or one of those unregistered motorized gasoline (illegal)) scooters?

A quick glance through her facebook profile would tell you that she rides a standard motorcycle that appears to be registered correctly. She's also a married working parent and an honor roll student at Wentworth. Not that those respectability politics should matter; nothing she could do would make her deserve to have a white man in her face telling her she doesn't belong in "his" neighborhood.

I'm not sure on what planet you think Adam is contributing to racism by showing a video of a racist and labeling it as such. If anything, he's pointing out that racism occurs and agreeing that we all need to continue to fight it.

I challenge the critics to attempt to identify the race of any driver at night, especially with today's factory tint in both the police cruiser windows and the civilian motorist's windows. Modern air conditioning and heat in cars mean that most drive with the windows closed. Even more difficult when motorists have added "after market tint." The fallacy that police are looking to pull over black people is outrageous and untrue.

I have better than 20/20 vision and could never tell, even when my cruiser was parked near a street light. I had no idea who I was stopping until I got up to the window and know of no officers that would treat a black motorist differently than white. Criminal history is different, if the driver (white, black, Hispanic, Asian whatever) has a history, officers are trained to dig a little deeper. A racist officer wouldn't last long, especially on the BPD.

I would encourage the readers to park on a side street that intersects with a main street with 30 or even 25 mph speed limit, at night, and note the race of the driver, never mind 65 mph on the highway. Better chance of hitting the lottery, so it's not race.

While many of us (Dorchester residents) love to tell people how diverse our neighborhood is, it is also remarkably segregated for being such a small geographical area. Census data show the overall neighborhood as being about 28% white. Yet, according to the website City Data some parts are whiter than Vermont or NH. The street blocks surrounding the area where this incident took place are anywhere from 97% to 100% white. Other parts (West of Bowdoin St or Washington St for instance) are the complete opposite with hardly any white people in them.

These divisions can be reflected in attitudes toward others and voting patterns; in Cedar Grove, near where this incident took place it was 46% Trump, 48% Hillary in 2016. Other precincts less than a mile away gave Trump less than 2% of the vote.

People can have different opinions on who they want to vote for in an election. Shocker.

You are cherry picking here to get your result. HRC won the precinct where this happened by 10%.

As far as a person on a motorcycle goes parked out at the corner of Adams and Chelmsford, Boston has a motorcycle problem, as do a lot of places. It is always "Check Twice, Save A Life", until you watch them go by you at 90 on the highway and 50 in your neighborhood. They are young, old, very old, and typically are thinking they are either reenacting Easy Rider or Biker Boys, when they are just really pains in the asses disturbing the peace.

For all of you who called for the elimination of cars and all other forms of auto transport after that child was killed in South Boston last week, just remember, we have someone who may (not proven, but most likely) drives like a threat to pedestrian and vehicle through the streets of Boston.

Yes, there's a problem with dirtbikes. I've called 911 on many of them being ridden the wrong way, through parks, on and off sidewalks, narrowly missing pedestrians, weaving through traffic, and all that.

Look at this woman's facebook profile. She's a married working parent and a student at Wentworth. She rides a motorcycle both as transportation and as a hobby, and goes to women's motorcycle conventions. Those hobbyist motorcycle folks are usually very proudly into safe and proper operation. If we're going to profile, I'd say everything I can see suggests she's about the last person who would engage in unsafe riding or riding to intimidate or any of that. It's certainly a better gamble than assuming based on her being a women of color and being in Dorchester that she is disturbing the peace or darting out in front of cars and deserved to have a big angry white guy threatening her and saying she doesn't belong there.

First, I waited all day to make sure my son was not subjected to all sorts of racial slurs, and watching this after he was in bed, all I got was a guy who has anger management issues, which is important, but nothing racial or sexist.

We do not see on the video what happened when he approached her. Heck, to start with we don't know what time of night it was, and these are linked. Was she idling her cycle loudly at 1 AM, or did she drive up and quickly park at 9? If it was the latter, yeah, it's most likely a race thing. If it was the former, race probably had nothing to do with it. Did he start off like a raving lunatic, or did he nicely ask her to turn the bike off only to be met with the language we heard her use with the camera rolling?

Was he out of line? It looks like the cop would say so, as would I (from what I saw, anyway.) If he indeed were arrested, it was for disorderly conduct, or in layman's language, not shutting the fuck up when the cop told his to calm down and shut the fuck up. I have this problem with my son, except he's six and doesn't have the emotional intelligence that an adult should have. I can't defend the guy too much, but without knowing what came before, I'm not ready to say this was a racial incident. Non-white people might find this hard to believe, but white people do treat other white people like this. Heck, most murders of white people in America are committed by other white people. There's anger out there, and it's not always about race.

Actually, I don't have to even ask that when there is a history of posts available.

As for "ride around my neighborhood", well, too bad I can't record audio. There is a platoon of harleys making their evening rounds of the roadways surrounding the Fells as I type - just like they seem to do most weekend nights.

I'd rather have her idling her bike in front of my house all day and night as opposed to hearing one second of this kook's obnoxious ranting.

I'll be very surprised if this guy isn't a known neighborhood crackpot.

We shall see.

BTW, I don't live far from there.

The hit and run from Ashmont ended in a crash a block away and there have been some shootings too close for comfort. So I can see people on edge a bit. But this guy is way beyond the pale and seems pretty damn racist to me.

Ask yourself if he'd be ranting about "you people" and "his neighborhood" (and not hers by extension!) if she were white.

This is classic. Some lunatic goes on a rant in Dorchester and people here end up making it about the police - take away, BPD is racist and god forbid someone try to chime in and support the BPD, then you are "whitesplaining".

But when Adam posts regulary about shootings, murders, or other crime in Boston neighborhoods, you rarely see a SIGLE comment. Everyone is quick to call people racist, but not to look at the issues and offer solutions to problems.

I am glad to see both news reports and anecdotal experience that demonstrates restraint and good situation management and Conflict de escalation by Boston police. Who gives me hope they're my own experience was either an aberration or the end of a bad trend.

In my 20 + years of living here and many more of visiting as a driver, I've been stopped by police about 3 times.

One was mass state police. So, frustrating and uncommunicative, barely anything said just handed me the ticket. But, the Trooper was professional, calm, non-aggressive and kept the whole encounter under control.

The other two were Boston police. White guy, white caps, stabbed in my own neighbourhood. Horrible situations. Officers aggressive and confrontational and belligerent from the moment they jumped out of the car. Very much tending to escalate the situation and create conflict and create resentment. After the second time that happened I came home and told my wife then these guys in general personality would probably be like a lot of Boston campus I know - they didn't have any racial issues that I have noticed. What they did have was such a bad approach to the situation from the start that I would never blame anybody from another ethnic group for thinking that an officer had some sort of a racial issue with them if they were interacting with them like that. It was the type of stuff where I could only just sit through the stuff, give short replies and not escalate. Idiots with badges and guns - so tightly-wound that a traffic stop had them jumpy. Wondered a bit if the city would someday have a shooting tragedy - something avoidable but happens because of bad situational management (doubling down on tragedy if something like a race riot would result from it)